An intro - and about my OBE. Maybe.

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters,

As is custom, I believe an introduction is in order. If I seem a little familiar in the approach of my speech, let me say that I feel I know many of you, or at the very least, understand the spirit of this board. For you see I have lurked in the background for some tens years, never having felt like I needed to join the conversations, simply reading all this site had to offer was enough. That was until a few days ago, to which I ask that you offer your thoughts on the coming story.

Before that, a little about me. I am a father and husband. I am in my mid-30’s and my knees are in their mid-50’s. I enjoy many of the topics here but remain largely skeptical of the more fantastical elements. I am a Christian, for which I’d like to paraphrase C.S Lewis; that you may better understand my beliefs. “I believe in Christianity, not because it is therapeutic but because it is true”. I am a huge Motorsport fan (primarily F1).

With that, I invite you to read the event that prompted me to join ATS.

I should start my story with a point towards the use of “maybe” in the title, I use “maybe” simply to highlight that this event could have just as easily been a dream, in this matter I will let the reader decide.

Now dear reader, the topic at hand - for which I shall provide a little context. For the longest time I have been what some may call “a sufferer of sleep paralysis”, a label I would not argue against. Although a common feature of my nocturnal life, irregardless of emotion tone, the higher the my daily anxiety, the more likely sleep paralysis becomes.

I am currently in an anxious period of my life, I will save the details aside to say; my mind is at its most restless before sleep. To overcome this I use prayer, last night was no different, as such, this is how the whole event started.

Restless, I begin to pray. After about 15mins of prayers, I drift into that soup of hypnagogic consciousness. Suddenly I hear a loud bang, then a stream of high pitched rushing, like water through a whistle. I am paralysed. My prayers continue. I feel no fear, quite the opposite, I feel comforted, as if a warm blanket coats each cell of my being. I notice I am slightly misaligned. The thing that I feel I am is not quite centred with the thing that I actually am, like a puzzle piece not quite slotted into its rightful place.

At this point I decide to try getting up. I seem to have four arms. Two where they ought to be and two where they ought not to be. With my out-of-place arms I push up from the bed, I feel a tug in my chests. It is uncomfortable but not painful. I try again. It is not clear what happened next but I’m sure my pursuit worked because now I am “above myself” - I quote “above myself” here because it actual felt like I was below myself, as if the room had flipped and I am now looking up at where I am or if you prefer, where have just come from.

The most striking thing about this part is just how murky the world appears. It’s as if I am squinting at myself through a pair of dirty spectacles. The room feels cold and dark, devoid of any vibrancy. I feel slightly panicked now. My breath picks up it’s pace. I can still hear the prayers. A dream begins, a real dream not the drunken malaise of consciousness I just experienced. In the dream I am embracing Christ, he tells me he loves me. I then “wake up” but am not really awake, it’s the hypnagogic soup again only this time I am not misaligned but tangled. It is not clear to me if I am laying down or sitting up, whether I am on my bed or about it, I may have four arms or ten, all I know is each is wrapped unnaturally around me.

At this point I awake for real. I roll over, think for a moment about what just occurred before quickly falling back into a dreamless slumber.

a reply to: JungAnon

Hey, welcome to ATS.

a reply to: JungAnon

Another post.

Yup.

a reply to: JungAnon

Where the f*ck do you tend bar at?

Welcome to ATS, I hope you enjoy the place like I have for many years.

originally posted by: JungAnon
Restless, I begin to pray. After about 15mins of prayers, I drift into that soup of hypnagogic consciousness. Suddenly I hear a loud bang, then a stream of high pitched rushing, like water through a whistle. I am paralysed. My prayers continue. I feel no fear, quite the opposite, I feel comforted, as if a warm blanket coats each cell of my being. I notice I am slightly misaligned. The thing that I feel I am is not quite centred with the thing that I actually am, like a puzzle piece not quite slotted into its rightful place.

The buzzing noise. High pitched rushing is a good description too.

The loud banging noise is sometimes referred to as exploding head syndrome and is also associated with sleep disturbances or hypnogogic irregularities.

I can't tell you what is "real", but for your experience. Real is somewhat subjective and varies from one person to the next You experienced it though, so it gives you something to reflect on. You may think it was real today, a dream tomorrow, or somewhere in between at any time. It's really entirely up to you and your perception.

Prayer is often cited as a way to break out of sleep paralysis. I think it would be beneficial to add your own conceptual power to that prayer by imagining your energy balled up in your center. I don't think it matters where exactly, but the important thing is that's where you feel the source of "you". Focus on it, shut out the fear, and see where it goes. I believe the keys are the focus internally and the recognition of it as the source the phenomenon. It's within your control, so long as you don't try to clutch it too hard. I think the structure of your belief is more important than the semantics of defining them.

Sleep paralysis definitely increases in frequency due to stress. That can be emotional stress, physical stress from illness, or mental stress from insufficient sleep. Probably all of those feed into the likelihood and work synergistically with each other. It also seems to be an issue for those that lucid dream, based on speaking to others that also experiment with these altered states.

Many practitioners say that sleep paralysis can be used as a launchpad for astral exploration or lucid dreaming. Regardless of if you define those spaces as an internal construct or external dimensional fields, it seems this has some kernal of truth. I've not used it that way, but have become "stuck" slightly outside my normal perceptual vantage from a semi-lucid sleep paralysis state.

ATS could and should become a place for more thoughtful discussion about these topics. Our current state of affairs is not conducive to it, but that's been the case for a few years anyway. If you don't get much of response right now... well you can see why. Wait it out. There are a number of us that had hoped ATS may be shifting a bit, but if it doesn't we may create a place where people can discuss this without dealing with the flak.

Thanks for sharing. There are way more of these stories out there and you're far from alone. Dogma prevents more of them from coming out. The conflicts of demonimational doctrines and the -aggressively- skeptical athiest trolls makes it annoying to have a conversation about it on public forums.